Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said in a statement the July 28 shooting “raised a lot of questions about whether departmental policies were followed”, adding that officers will be held accountable for their actions “should wrongdoing be discovered”.
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On Saturday, Johnson’s remarks at the Chicago Police headquarters, at 3510 S. Michigan, were not interrupted.
Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the officer’s body camera could have been deactivated when the stolen Jaguar slammed into his squad auto and set off the air bags. The fatal shots are not shown on video but can be heard.
The lack of a complete video accounting of O’Neal’s shooting prompted allegations of a coverup from the Rev. Jesse Jackson and calls for a special prosecutor from an attorney for O’Neal’s family. The video shows that after O’Neal crashed into one police SUV and a parked vehicle, two officers fired 15 shots in about five seconds in the direction of a second police cruiser.
Johnson said the lack of a body-camera video of the O’Neal shooting is under investigation, though he noted that the officers in that police district had the cameras for only about a week before the shooting.
Oppenheimer said the officer’s body cam could have been shut off or manipulated.
The jaguar and another police vehicle colide and more guns fire as someone runs.
Moments later, officers curse at 18-year-old Paul O’Neal as they put him in handcuffs as he lies face down.
At a press conference, O’Neal’s sister, Briana Adams, said she wanted to know why her brother had to die. It was the city’s first release of video of a fatal police shooting under a new policy that calls for such material to be made public within 60 days.
No firearms were found on O’Neal, who police shot in the back.
That and other policy changes represent an effort to restore public confidence in the department after video released previous year showed a black teenager named Laquan McDonald getting shot 16 times by a white officer.
Johnson gave very few details about the probe, but addressed what some said was inappropriate behavior by officers following the incident. A body cam worn by the officer who shot the fatal round wasn’t on at the time for reasons that remain unclear. Some protesters said they were discouraged by the size of the crowd compared to the crowds that marched in November following the McDonald video’s release.
In 2014, McDonald, a black teen who was walking away from officers with a knife in his hand, was shot 16 times by a police officer. In February, Emanuel announced the city would start releasing videos of shootings and other major uses of force within two to three months.
It took more than 400 days for the release of the dashboard camera footage of that shooting. Authorities have not specified which policy the officers broke. Because the investigation into the incident is ongoing, police are prohibited from commenting on which policy was violated.
Police say they spotted O’Neal driving a Jaguar convertible that had been reported stolen. In both of the shootings ruled unjustified, IPRA determined the officers faced no serious danger when they fired.
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“Regardless of that, one police officer did violate the city’s use of force policy, which explicitly bars police from shooting into a auto when the vehicle represents the only danger”, according to the Washington Post.
